His name is now a corporate brand, so perhaps this reading on Nikola Tesla and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet will help students understand the significance of that fact–and learn something about the plot of the recent film The Current War.
If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
“commodification: A term derived from Marxist analyses of the social forces that guide the production and sale of products, or commodities. Since the Renaissance, artworks have been commodities paid for by religious or royal patrons. By the 20th century, art production had become entangled in a complex web composed of collectors, auction houses, galleries, and museums. In the tradition of Dada, 1960s artists feeling constrained by increasing commercialism sought to create unmarketable works, giving rise to conceptual, political, performance, and earth art. Recent artists concerned with issues of originality, authorship, and camp, are indirectly addressing issues of commodification and canon formation.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
Moving right along, here is a complete lesson plan on the Crime and Puzzlement case “Boy Scout.”
I open this lesson, after the relative chaos of a class change, with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the American English idiom bone to pick. This PDF of the illustration and questions of the case is the centerpiece of the lesson. Finally, here is the typescript of the answer key to finish the lesson by solving the case.
If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
Ok, teachers in Boston and environs, if not the entire state of Massachussetts, I’m hard-pressed to imagine that this reading on legendary Celtics coach Red Auerbach and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet wouldn’t be of high interest in you educational marketplace, so to speak. I conducted a brisk trade in these documents when I taught in Springfield, Massachusetts, last year.
If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
“[1] People love to play the Two Things game, but rarely agree about what the two things are. [2] That goes double for anyone who works with computers.
A few years ago, Glen Whitman was chatting with a stranger in a California bar. When he confessed to this stranger that he taught economics, the drinker replied without so much as a pause for breath, ‘So what are the Two Things about economics? You know, for every subject there are really only two things you really need to know. Everything else is the application of those two things, or just not important.’ ‘Okay,’ said the professor, ‘One: Incentives matter. Two: There’s no such thing as a free lunch.’
Inspired, Glenn started playing the Two Things Game and recording some of the results on a web page (Google ‘Whitman’ and ‘Two Things’ and you’ll get there). But it’s more fun to try it for yourself–and especially good if you find yourself at a dinner next to a self-important professional. Here are some of the best of Whitman’s:
Finance: [1] Buy low. [2] Sell high.
Medicine: [1] Do no harm. [2] To do any good, you must risk doing harm.
Journalism: [1] There is no such thing as objectivity. [2] The end of the story is created by your deadline.
Theatre: [1] Remember your lines. [2] Don’t run into the furniture or fall off the stage.
Physics: [1] Energy is conserved. [2] Photons (and everything else) behave like both waves and particles.
Religion: [1] Aspire to love an unknowable god. [2] Do this by trying to love your neighbour as much as yourself.”
Excerpted from: Rogerson, Barnaby. Rogerson’s Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers–from 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. New York: Picador, 2013.
“A Streetcar Named Desire: An intense drama (1947) by the US playwright Tennessee Williams (1911-83) about the relationship between a faded Southern belle, Blanche Dubois, and her brother-in-law Stanley Kowalski. It was subsequently turned into a successful film (1951), directed by Elia Kazan, starring Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh. The play had several titles before the final one, including The Moth, Blanche’s Chair in the Moon and The Poker Night. The eventual title was inspired by a streetcar labeled ‘Desire’ (for its destination, Desire Street), which, together with another called ‘Cemeteries,’ plied the main street in the district of New Orleans where Williams lived. In the play the names are taken symbolically, Blanche contending that her sister Stella’s marriage is a product of lust, as aimless as the ‘streetcar named Desire’ that shuttles through the narrow streets. The name of the street does not denote a place of pleasure but derives from the French girl’s name Desiree. A monument, the ‘Streetcar Named Desire,’ now stands on the site near the French Market. The play is a leitmotif in Pedro Almodovar’s film Todo Sobre Mi Madre (All About My Mother, 1999).
‘They told me to take a streetcar named Desire, then transfer to one called Cemeteries.’
Tennessee Williams: A Streetcar Named Desire (Blanche’s first line).”
Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.
OK, moving right along on this Friday morning, here is a lesson plan on the Crime and Puzzlement case “Kidnap.”
I open this lesson, after the fractiousness of a class change, with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the idiom “bee in one’s bonnet.” You’ll need this PDF of the reading and questions that drive the case. Finally, here is the typescript of the answer key that solves the case.
If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
While I have to assume that Seinfeld remains in syndication, new episodes left the airwaves long ago; in fact, the last episode was broadcast over 20 years ago on May 14, 1998. Since he remains something of a global cultural icon, this reading on Jerry Seinfeld and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet might remain of interest to students.
If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
“Functionary, n. A person entrusted with certain official duties. That great and good man, the late President Buchanan, once unluckily mentioned himself with commendable satisfaction as ‘an old public functionary.’ The description fitted him like a skin and he wore it to his grave. When he appeared as the Judgement Seat, and his case was called, the Recording Angel ran his finger down the index to the Book of Doom and read off the name: ‘James Buchanan, O.P.F.’ ‘What does that mean?’ inquired the Court. And with that readiness of resource which in life had distinguished it from a garden slug, that truthful immortal part replied: ‘Oncommonly phaultless filanthropist.’ Mr. Buchanan was admitted to a seat in the Upper House.”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000.
While I’m not sure it is necessarily a word high schoolers ought to know (although every time I qualify a blog post with those words, I find myself wondering if there is any word a high schooler doesn’t need to know), here nonetheless is a context clues worksheet on the adjective abstruse. It means, simply, “difficult to comprehend.”
If that doesn’t quite cover conceptually what you mean students to understand, then perhaps this worksheet on the adjective recondite will supply the needed depth of understanding. It means “hidden from sight, concealed,” “difficult or impossible for one of ordinary understanding or knowledge to comprehend,” and “of, relating to or dealing with something little known or obscure.”
Incidentally, I have always been impressed by the fact, and have tried to impress students with it as well, that the great rapper Guru (who died in 2010, I was sad to learn while writing this post) managed to work recondite into his song “Jazz Thing” in reference to the late, great Thelonious Monk.
If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
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